Never Speak of This Again
by Penbrydd
Summary: [RND] Renji wakes from a nightmare and submits to the urge to offer comfort, even if he's going to get killed for it, later. [IshiRen]
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: **Bleach is the property of Kubo Tite. I just borrow his characters and play with them.**  
Author's Note:**_ _This thing wouldn't let me sleep. I knocked it off in an hour and a half, and I'm dead tired, so if I screwed something up, just let me know. I'm already expecting the typos and ambiguous antecedents._

* * *

He woke up in the middle of the night, alone and lying on the floor. The blanket was tangled around him, and he could see the futon a few feet away. _Must have had a nightmare,_ he thought, but couldn't remember it at all, aside from the cold feeling in his chest. He stood and wrapped himself as tastefully as possible in a blanket -- his clothes were still drying on the line, and he wasn't certain of the wisdom of wandering Urahara's back rooms in the nude. Pausing with his hand on the door, he felt another stab of fear. There was nothing wrong, but the last several months had been extremely difficult. No matter how he had tried to avoid mentioning them, he'd had to come to terms with a few things, including, repeatedly, a fear of Rukia's death. She was the Captain's sister, now, but she'd been his sister first, back on the streets of Rukongai. 

He stepped out into the hall and allowed himself to feel his sleeping friends as he passed their rooms. None seemed particularly disturbed, and Rukia was clearly sleeping peacefully. He couldn't quite chase the fear away, but he managed to force it back down to where it always lay, just beneath his heart. He suddenly realised that he'd managed not to wake Chad in his nocturnal flight of terror-- the large man was so dormant that he'd forgotten they shared a room. Only Ishida had a room to himself, out of respect for the Quincy's unease with other people. He passed that door, now, and laid his hand on it.

Ishida had been different since that Bounto woman died. He constantly blamed himself, tearing at his own confidence with endless 'what if...'s. The boy was truly suffering under the weight of her death. He knew what that loss felt like -- even if Rukia hadn't been put to death, he had never imagined that she would survive, however much he fought for her life. His doubt had hurt him then, and he knew what it must be doing to Ishida, now.

Silently, he slid the door to the Quincy's room open. The boy was curled into a ball, from the chill, not from fear, as far as he could tell. He sighed and stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. The least he could do was provide some warmth. It was enough to suffer inside, without the added discomfort of the cold. He looked around the room, but the blankets were already on the bed, and doubled for extra warmth. _That's what he gets for being so thin, I guess,_ he thought, in mild amusement. There was, then, only one way to go about this.

He knelt beside the futon for a few moments, judging the space the boy didn't occupy. Finally, he lifted the blankets carefully, and slid beneath them. He wrapped one arm around the young Quincy then, as an afterthought, added a leg. The boy's hip was sharp, but this would offer the best distribution of heat with the least waste. Ishida made a small noise of satisfaction and relaxed back into the warm body behind him.

He smiled slightly, amazed at how well the Quincy fit against him. A new pain clutched at his chest as he slid a hand across the cold skin and breathed in the scent of the boy. There were some things that were just... _You're just feeling compassionate because of that nightmare. That's all this is._ He'd just keep telling himself that, and maybe this shameful sense of comfort and desire would fade. It had to be an illusion.

_You can't keep anything! You're not allowed! You lost your own sister to a noble house, and this will be over the minute he wakes up and kills you. And he will kill you, Renji; don't kid yourself._ The voice in his head continued to tally his failures. His friends had been few, and even fewer remained after he had shown himself to have his own unshakeable honour, which was not the honour that was being taught. Ichigo understood that courage, that sense of right. They would always argue over whose turn it was to exercise that honour in defense of this week's trauma case, but he figured that Ichigo would stick around until the end.

Ishida, on the other hand... Ishida was secretive and distrustful. He was never entirely certain of the Quincy's motivations, and the boy made some terrifying choices. _What, like breaking the laws of Soul Society to save the only person who ever loved your worthless ass wasn't a terrifying choice?_ ... He had to concede that that was an excellent point. Either way, though, this Quincy who was so happy to have his warmth was probably going to turn into a murdering bastard the instant he realised there was a Shinigami in his bed.

He tried to convince himself to get up and leave, to extract himself from the boy before he met his death in some horrifically shameful fashion, but he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep knowing that Ishida was freezing his ass off. He finally surrendered to the desire to stay, and made peace with himself. If he died, he'd die doing the right thing, however bizarre that thing might be.

Ishida mumbled something unitelligible and started to roll over in his sleep. The Shinigami tried to back away, and escape, undetected, but the Quincy reached out to him and refused to let go. He stopped struggling, trying to delay the inevitable. The boy would wake up. He was going to die. He'd even left Zabimaru in the other room. He lay flat on his back as Ishida snuggled closer and curled around him. The boy mumbled something else unintelligible, and the Shinigami smoothed his hair.

_Wrong answer._ The Quincy's eyes flew open at the unexpected touch and he tensed. "Renji? What's ... What are you...?"

"You were cold. I couldn't just..." He looked down as best he could at the blue eyes staring confusedly up from somewhere near his left shoulder. "Kill me quickly. I'm unarmed. I had a nightmare and I couldn't watch you suffer."

"You..." The confusion became more intense. "I remember suddenly being warm. That was you? Why didn't you just get more blankets?"

"Sorry, there just aren't any more. I think I'm wearing the last one." He looked down to realise that he was wearing a lot less of it than he'd started in and turned an alarming shade of red to match his hair. "I think you're laying on it, actually. I was wearing it."

"Look, Shinigami, I'm tired and cold. What if I just go back to sleep, and you stay right there, and we never speak of this again?"

He blinked. "You're not going to kill me? Deal."

Ishida raised his head and looked down with barely restrained amusement. "If I killed you, you'd stop being warm. Now shut up and go to sleep."

He slid his arms around Ishida and moved the boy a bit. "Let me get the blanket from under you. It will do more good on you."

He spread the blanket on top of the other one and put his arms around the boy again, pulling the Quincy on top of himself. "There. Now I'll keep you warm from here, and the blankets will keep the heat in."

Ishida moved down to rest his head on Renji's chest, and slid his legs between the Shinigami's. "Is this okay? It's more comfortable for me."

He just nodded, carefully containing the wild elation he felt. "Goodnight, Quincy."

Ishida smiled against Renji's skin. "Goodnight, Shinigami. Remember, never speak of this again."

For once, he knew peace as he drifted off to sleep with this unlikely companion in his arms. Never again, but he'd done right and escaped unscathed and still holding his prize. That had to be worth something. Maybe there really was something right in the world.

* * *

**_In reply to fyredra on LJ's renishi community, after a comment about this story being "__quiet and slightly dorky"_******

_Oddly, I think the quiet dorkiness is a result of it having been from Renji's perspective. I've only watched the anime, so I don't know if he's different in the manga, but the points at which Renji's 'give a shit' show themselves, he's overcome with despair and dedication -- a desire to do the best he can, and this crushing sense that it will never be enough. A sense that if he dies trying, at least he won't have to witness the aftermath. For reference, I'm gonna point to the fight with Ichigo, the fight with Byakuya, and the scene on the porch at the end of the Bounto arc._

Ishida, for all that he's the quieter of the two, has a much more binary view of the world: there's good and there's bad, and never the twain shall meet. It's why Yoshino bothered him so much, I think. He's got the 'die having done' rather than the 'die trying'. To die before he has finished what he set out to do would make him a failure, and he'd never stop blaming himself. If, however, he finishes his intent and then drops dead, at least he'll have done something worth doing. Thus, there is less quiet angst inside his head and more straightforward praise and damnation. 


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer:**Bleach is the property of Kubo Tite. I just borrow his characters and play with them._ _**Author's Note:** I appear to have lied about this being complete. It's now gnawing my ass off again, so you get another chapter, and as soon as I can write it, a third chapter as well. Funny how these oneshots so rarely end as they began._

* * *

Renji woke the next morning to find the Quincy wrapped around his body, one leg still between his own, the other leg up with the knee hooked over his hip. He wondered how long he'd slept through the rather uncomfortable pressure on his groin where Ishida's sharp hip rested. _Irrelevant!_ some part of him insisted. After all, his arms were still resting on the back of the fantastic dream he was sure he'd wake up without. 

The birdlike boy mumbled something incoherent and flinched in his sleep. His thin fingers dug into Renji's chest beside the lips that still moved in some silent protestation.

He twitched at the sudden pain, but felt a deeper one. Ishida had finally allowed himself to begin to feel a love that was not based in simple respect, like that he semed to hold for his friends, but in admiration. And then the woman had died -- been destroyed, really, consumed and reformed in some bizarre cannibalistic ritual while the boy watched. The Quincy was ill, to say the least. Heartsick and broken, with nothing left to hold on to. Renji couldn't see a way that this wouldn't end poorly.

Ishida woke with a stifled squeak of despair as the dream fell away and he found himself clutching Renji's tattooed chest. He looked up in absolute confusion as he tried to remember what had happened and what was just a dream. He ran his fingertips over the dents they'd left as if trying to smooth them away, then squeezed his eyes shut, apparently against the one tear that dripped, unseen, onto the black line below.

_Crying? Oh, crap. Um... what do I..._ He'd never dealt well with this sort of thing, and it was the first time he'd had to handle it without any pants on. He tried to remember what Rukia had told him, long ago, about what crying girls expected. He'd been slapped, that day, and Nanao never spoke to him civilly, afterward. The advice wouldn't be right, but at least it would be something. It would also be the first time he'd have put it to use. Gently, he tightened his grip on the boy slightly, moving one hand up to a shoulder and the other down to a hip.

"Hey, you're going to be alright," he lied, comfortingly, hoping the words sounded less false to Ishida than they did to him. He tilted his head up, a real effort, he noticed, when one is laying on one's own hair, and pressed his lips against the crown of the Quincy's head.

Ishida shivered and bit his lip before falling into nearly silent tears. His hands splayed against Renji's chest, seeking contact with the radiant warmth. There was no sound but the faint hitching of his breath as every muscle in his body tensed as if to keep his heart in his chest, where it belonged. He made a faint mewling sound in the back of his closed throat as Renji gently stroked his back.

He knew this needed to happen. This was probably the first time Ishida had really felt the loss, instead of rationalising it away. Unfortunately, when the boy tensed up, his hip had been driven even more uncomfortably into Renji's nether regions. It was now time to try something that, whether it ended in death or success, would alleviate that crippling pain.

"Ishida-kun, look at me." He removed one hand from the boy's shoulder and used it to tilt his chin up. "Show me those brilliant blue eyes so I know that you're listening to me."

"Flattery," the Quincy hissed, as his eyes shot open in surprise and his cheeks tinted. "Don't... I'm not... It isn't..."

He was struck again by the boy's exotic features. Blue eyes were not a common complement to black hair, and the way Ishida's skin glowed in the first hints of light leaking into the room made him seem to be made of thickly glazed porcelain. His breath left him in a rush as he tried to regather his thoughts.

"It's not flattery. You... I've just completely forgotten what I meant to say to you." He looked somewhat petulant. "You look like..." _a starry night. the first dawn of summer. the western sky as night settles. a dream come true._ "Why aren't more girls..." _because, you idiot, you're the first one to ever witness this. they've never seen him waking to a broken heart at the break of day. _

_you should be ashamed of yourself. pain should not be this beautiful. _

_...but, it is._

Ishida watched as Renji's brain ground to a stumbling halt. The Shinigami's eyes burned as he wrestled with internal inconsistencies that he'd never noticed before, first among them that despite the swelling protestation of his recently damaged naughty bits, he'd never before been interested in anything that wasn't female. The Quincy blushed even more brightly as he noticed the beginning of those spirited protestations against his belly, and reached down, intending to do something dramatic and mood destroying.

Instead, as Ishida's fingers brushed across the hot flesh, Renji made a soft sound between terror and ecstacy, a wordless plea not to be hurt for something he couldn't control, even if he wasn't certain he wanted to control it. The Quincy stopped and studied the scene before him. Here was a Shinigami, a vice captain nearly ten times his age, defenseless and afraid of the touch of just the tips of his fingers. His body responded swiftly to the power he had gained. This, then, was what it meant to be able to take what you wanted and know that you would get it without question. But did he want it? Ishida was rather disgusted at the idea of sex. Nevermind sex with a man. Nevermind sex with a male _Shinigami_.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer:**Bleach is the property of Kubo Tite. I just borrow his characters and play with them._

_**Author's Note:** My bad... sorry for the delay. I was getting my ass gnawed off by Naruto-flavoured plot-bunnies. I want to blame the sudden appearance of this chapter on Nobiki because getting reviews from people I fanboy over is really ... ah ... inspiring. Sorry it's so short, but it was either stop at the good and obvious break point, or sit on this chapter for another week while I figure out how to write smut without sounding like a moron.  
_

* * *

He was pinned still as the blue eyes met his own. "Tell me this is just because I'm leaning on you wrong. Tell me this is a pinched nerve, an accident, purely incidental," the Quincy demanded quietly.

Renji just looked away, rolling his head to the side to study the pattern in the rice paper of the walls. He preferred not to lie, and Ishida was asking to be lied to. He hoped to just wait out the moment. Maybe Rukia would wake up and start a fight with Ichigo -- that would be distracting. He willed it with all his heart, but nothing happened.

With a small sigh, he looked up again. The boy was still perched across his hips, grasping his half-hard flesh, and glaring at him with a look that could cut steel. "I can't tell you that," Renji said, hollowly. "Or, I could tell you that, but it wouldn't be true. We could pretend this was a kabuki performance, and I'm just an actor, and I could tell you anything you wanted to hear."

Renji continued to run his mouth in the false glee of his panicked state. Under any other circumstances, he'd have been hilarious, but Ishida just stared down, blue eyes filled with icy malice. The Quincy, it seemed, was unamused, and gripped with a sudden terror that seemed to correspond to the hand on his cock, Renji talked even faster.

"...and there was this fantastic play that I went to with Rukia, one time, where all of the actors were naked, because the director thought it added honesty to the already tragic plot. I don't know, I'm not much of a theatre-goer, but Rukia thought the guy was a complete idiot and Kuchiki-taichou thought it was brilliant and refused to explain why, but I took his word for it, because, well, he's the Captain, right? So, then..."

And suddenly the hysterical babbling stopped. It took Renji a moment to figure out why he'd stopped making sound, but it seemed to have something to do with the fact that he couldn't open his mouth... because Ishida's hand was covering it. _There, that makes sense._

The Quincy smiled down at him like fox looks at a meadow vole. "Shut up, Shinigami," he commanded, and Renji blinked up at him, heart fluttering. "You're really afraid of me, aren't you?"

Renji nodded vigorously, and Ishida moved his hand away from Renji's mouth. "Scared shitless. I keep thinking you're going to do something irreparable to the one part of my body I'd really miss."

"What, this?" Ishida asked, as innocently as he could manage, sliding his hand gently up and down Renji's length. Renji arched and whimpered beneath him.

"If you break my arms, I can probably fix them. If you break that, I'm not sure even Unohana-taichou is going to be able to help me."

Ishida laughed and tightened his grip slightly. "And if I don't break it? If I just play with it?"

Renji bit his lip and squirmed at the increased pressure. "Then you should move anything you dont want to wash out, later. I can't help it."

"Do you want me?" the Quincy demanded, leaning down to touch his forehead to the Shinigami's, "Or do you just want to fuck?"

Renji's back arched and his hips thrust up of their own accord as he heard that word pass from the subdued and proper Quincy's lips. He had never wanted to fuck as much as he did in that instant -- if only because there was usually a great deal less effort involved in claiming a partner -- and he knew that nothing would satisfy that lust but the stunning example of distinctly-not-a-Shinigami that currently had his _entire_ attention.

"Ishida-san," he panted, "I want you. And I want to hear you say that again..."

Ishida smirked and lowered his lips to directly beside the Shinigami's ear. "You want to hear me ask you if you want to fuck?"

A pained groan escaped Renji's lips as every muscle in his body tightened. "Oh, yes..."

Ishida, of course, was not unaffected. He had never before been aware of how intensely erotic complete control really was, and now, watching the effect of the powed he wielded was enough to make him intensely aware of his own flesh, and the desire he had to possess Renji completely.

"Yes, you want to hear it, or yes, you want to fuck?" he asked michevously.

"Oh, god. Either. Both. Anything." Renji's eyes were squeezed shut as he begged, trying and failing to regain control of his body.

"And what if I say I want to fuck you?" Ishida whispered, playfully.

Renji's eyes shot open and he grabbed the Quincy by both shoulders, hauling him back up to where their eyes could meet. "Don't joke with me about that," he snarled, "Whatever else you have in mind, whatever you want to do to me, don't say that unless you mean it."

The Quincy's eyes widened like saucers, and both his hands fluttered up to grab at Renji's wrists. "I wasn't joking!" he insisted, "I wouldn't joke about that! Someone might take me seriously!" 


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer:**Bleach is the property of Kubo Tite. I just borrow his characters and play with them._

_**Author's Note:** This chapter is going to be broken in half -- not for length, but because I've hit a glitch in my ability to write Ishida, and I don't want to keep you guys hanging. I know this stops in something of an odd place, but this is where I'm stuck. I'm totally open to suggestions -- maybe I'll get a clue and manage to finish this damnable scene. It's been driving me batshit.  
_

* * *

Renji looked up into the Quincy's suddenly terrified blue eyes, and tried to loosen his fingers from where he was certain they were leaving bruises on the boy's shoulders. "I'm sorry. It's been a difficult time for both of us, I think."

Ishida looked down at him in a sort of betrayed horror, and Renji looked away toward the window. "I'm sorry," the Shinigami repeated, "I was afraid you were just fucking with my head. It's practically a sport in some parts of Sereitei. I'm a funny guy -- a horse's ass to everyone -- it's not like they can hurt me. But you... I couldn't..."

Renji paused for a moment, trying to regain a coherent thread of thought. "I'd probably just have taken it out on Ichigo," he laughed.

The Quincy reached out, awkwardly, and ran the fingertips of his left hand down the line of Renji's jaw. "I'm sure you'll find something else to take out on Ichigo, now that I've deprived you of this stunning opportunity."

As he turned his face back toward the boy perched across his hips, Renji reached up and captured Ishida's hand, moving it from where it lay, along the angle of his jaw, to his lips. He kissed the Quincy's fingers softly. "It would take an awful lot to make me quite that annoyed, again," he offered with a faint smile.

Smirking playfully, again, Ishida plucked his hand from the Shinigami's grasp. "I could just take my hand back and go get breakfast, if you'd prefer. I'd hate to miss out on the macho posturing, later."

Renji grinned and rolled over, pinning Ishida to the bed. "Don't you dare." There was a long pause. "You really want to see me take it out of Ichigo?"

The Quincy failed to look entirely innocent.

"I'll find something to be annoyed about. But, right now, I think I have better things to do." Nervously, Renji ran his thumb across Ishida's cheekbone, and placed a kiss on the boy's forehead.

Ishida looked vaguely irritated at Renji's hesitation and flicked a finger in the air, gesturing for the Shinigami to roll back over. Renji looked surprised, but did as he was told, and the Quincy climbed back onto him, with a wicked little smile. The blue-eyed boy leaned down and firmly pressed his lips against those of the startled Shinigami beneath him. Taken by surprise by Ishida's sudden straightforwardness, Renji gasped, opening his mouth to the boy's sweet and talented tongue.

_This can't really be Ishida. This has to be some strange joke. I'm going to be so disappointed, later, but --_ The thought terminated in a hazy swirl as he felt the Quincy's teeth pulling on his lip, just barely hard enough to draw blood. He grabbed the boy's hips and arced upward, unable to form coherent thoughts, as a desperate moan rolled out of the back of his throat.

The Quincy gasped, suddenly sitting up and parting his lips just enough to interrupt the smear of blood that started on his top lip, crossed one tooth, and stained jut a bit of his lower lip. Renji, blood still barely congealing where it leaked from his lip, slid his left hand up the boy's side, grabbed just the tips of his hair, and dragged Ishida back down to lick his lips clean. 


End file.
